Sport Thought: Horror year can't dent faith, so expand A-League fast

Well, it's certainly looking like that as far as expressions of interest in the A-League expansion process are concerned.

But will Football Federation Australia be brave enough to build a major structure to prepare for a long-term future that develops the game off the field as well as on it? Or will they be happy enough to tack on the odd extension here and there to mollify the short-term demands of the growing soccer family?

Illustration: Mick Connolly

It is a measure of the underlying strength and support for the game that despite all the problems it has faced this year there are anything between eight and a dozen or more consortia interested in bankrolling a new club.

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When you consider the kicking soccer has got – mainly from its own followers – over the stagnation of the A-League, the boring nature of a 10-team competition lacking promotion and relegation and the rollercoaster ride the Socceroos had in getting to the World Cup, that's not a bad achievement.

Add to that the internecine war between the FFA board, its chairman, Steven Lowy, some of its state federations, its professional clubs, the players' union and the representatives of the second-tier clubs, and we have had something of an annus horribilis.

The governance war has yet to be resolved. The very fact that FIFA – historically a byword in governance terms for sleaze, corruption and inefficiency – had to be brought in to oversee the mess should, in all probability, have alienated future investors more than anything else.

The A-League and FFA emerged from a tumultuous season much like victorious Melbourne Victory goalkeeper Laurence Thomas from the grand final: battered but somehow still standing.Credit:AAP

But it doesn't seem to have put them off – a testament to the unerring popularity of the sport.

Soccer in Australia has often been referred to as the sleeping giant.

Given the last year the game has had – rescued only by a stunning finals series, perhaps the best ever – perhaps it should be thought more of as a super bug or a cockroach: the game that its opponents and enemies simply cannot kill.

FFA has said it will enlarge the A-League by two teams for the 2019-20 season. In my view that is merely a start, and a cautious one at that.

For the game to truly grow, what soccer needs is two divisions, preferably both of 16 teams but a minimum of 14, with promotion and relegation the eventual aim.

Ambitious? Yes.

Worth trying for? Absolutely.

For all its faults – mainly on the finance and governance side – the National Soccer League produced some terrific players and it had a group of hardcore fans who also seeded the grassroots of the game.

In 14 short years since the demise of the NSL the game has created 10 fully funded professional teams supplying career opportunities to about 250 players, most Australians, many foreigners.

It has a TV deal worth $60 million a year in cash and kind, and now occupies considerably more space in the mainstream media than it used to.

It also has a plethora of websites and podcasts covering every aspect of the sport, spawning lively (if not always entirely reasonable, logical or coherent) debate on social media.

Already we have several highly professional bids breaking cover.

In Melbourne alone there is South Melbourne, representing a connection with the old traditional game.

There is also Team 11, tapping into a bright new demographic in south-east Melbourne centred on the Dandenong region, an area of huge population growth where much of the incoming population are migrants from traditional soccer nations.

There is also a bid from the city's western area which has yet to publicly reveal its plans but which is also expected to present a compelling case on infrastructure, population and popular support as well as significant funding from private investors.

In NSW, most headlines have been grabbed by Southern Expansion – a bid high in public profile but one which, to this observer, with its plans to play out of three stadia, runs the risk of satisfying no one.

There is also South West Sydney, based, as its name suggests, in that region of the city, and the Illawarra-based Wollongong Wolves, another traditional club with strong links to the game's recent history from a region that has produced many top-line players in recent years.

There is also interest from Queensland where the front runners would appear to be Brisbane City, and Brisbane Strikers, the former NSL champions.

It would seem the next two clubs will come from either Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. The TV bosses who bankroll the game prefer clubs from big cities. But there is also interest from Canberra, Tasmania, West Australia and South Australia.

In addition, a number of regional clubs have flagged their potential; Newcastle's success this season showed that teams from outside the capital cities can harness investment and achieve on-field success.

So why, if the game can attract this much interest in its current fractured form, wouldn't FFA introduce four or even six clubs into the top tier if they satisfied financial criteria?

If that is a bridge too far right now, don't dissipate this interest and capital while it's there.

Extend the A-League by two, on the current timetable, but also introduce a second division in 2019-20.

The clubs who win the second division the next four years could then be promoted to the A-League until it had 16 clubs.

In their turn they could be replaced by the best clubs from feeder competitions under the second division. Then, in the fifth season, introduce promotion and relegation.

Different budgets would apply, but Australia would then join the rest of the world with a pyramid structure rewarding ambition and excellence, and punishing laziness and poor performance.

Michael Lynch, The Age's expert on soccer, has had extensive experience of high level journalism in the UK and Australia. Michael has covered the Socceroos through Asia, Europe and South America in their past three World Cup campaigns. He has also reported on Grands Prix and top class motor sport from Asia and Europe. He has won several national media awards for both sports and industry journalism.